Holmgreen, Lise-Lotte

Strunck, Jeanne

English

The Danish management job ad: advertising for the competent manager or promoting masculine values?Genres are ways for organisations of discursively interacting with the surrounding world, with the aim of achieving specific disciplinary goals (Bhatia 2004). As such, the management job ad has the objective of finding the right candidate to the management job advertised (Norlyk 2006). But do management job ads, in fact, attract the right candidates? Recent research (e.g. Gardner 2003, Northouse 2004) into what makes a competent and effective leader has for instance pointed out that trait and style theories of earlier times do not account for the complexity of modern management and must consequently give way to models focusing on leadership as a process of communication and establishing relationships. This coincides with the idea that in order to attract candidates (women and men alike) to management positions, job ads will need to reflect a wider range of qualifications (cf. Askehave 2010). Against this background, the paper will provide examples of management job ads from the Danish financial and industrial sectors with the intention of studying discourses and values that may affect qualified applicants’ (female and male) desire to/not to apply for management jobs. The analysis of the examples suggests that, with few exceptions, companies within the financial and industrial sectors use communicative strategies and discursive repertoires that reflect a traits and style approach to the management job and reconstitute what is traditionally perceived as male values. For the individual company, this may result in the missing out on a number of well-qualified potential candidates, both female and male. However, the wider perspective of this approach is that it may contribute to the continued negative development in leadership performance and in the unequal distribution of women and men in management.ReferencesAskehave, Inger. 2010. Communicating leadership: A discourse analytical perspective on the job advertisement. Journal of Business Communication, 47: 313-345Bhatia, Vijay. 2004. Worlds of Written Discourse – A Genre-Based View. London/NY: ContinuumGardner, W. L. 2003. Perceptions of leader charisma, effectiveness and integrity: Effects of exemplification, delivery, and ethical reputation. Management Communication Quarterly, 16: 502-527.Norlyk, Birgitte. 2006. Clashing norms: Job ads or Job Narratives. In Paul Gillaerts and Philip Shaw (ed.), The Map and the Landscape – Norms and Practices in Genre, 43-62. Bern: Peter Lang.Northouse, Peter G. 2004. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

The Danish management job ad: advertising for the competent manager or promoting masculine values?

The Danish management job ad: advertising for the competent manager or promoting masculine values?Genres are ways for organisations of discursively interacting with the surrounding world, with the aim of achieving specific disciplinary goals (Bhatia 2004). As such, the management job ad has the objective of finding the right candidate to the management job advertised (Norlyk 2006). But do management job ads, in fact, attract the right candidates? Recent research (e.g. Gardner 2003, Northouse 2004) into what makes a competent and effective leader has e.g. pointed out that trait and style theories of earlier times do not account for the complexity of modern management and must consequently give way to models focusing on leadership as a process of communication and establishing relationships. This coincides with the idea that in order to attract candidates (women and men alike) to management positions, job ads will need to reflect a wider range of qualifications (cf. Askehave 2010). The paper will provide examples of management job ads from the Danish financial and industrial sectors with the intention of studying discourses and values that may affect qualified applicants’ desire to/not to apply for management jobs. The analysis of the examples suggests that, with few exceptions, companies within the financial and industrial sectors use discursive repertoires that reflect a traits and style approach to the management job and reconstitute what is traditionally perceived as male values. For the individual company, this may result in the missing out on a number of well-qualified potential candidates. The wider perspective is that it may contribute a negative development in leadership performance and in the unequal distribution of women and men in management.ReferencesAskehave, Inger. 2010. Communicating leadership: A discourse analytical perspective on the job advertisement. Journal of Business Communication, 47: 313-345Bhatia, Vijay. 2004. Worlds of Written Discourse – A Genre-Based View. London/NY: ContinuumGardner, W. L. 2003. Perceptions of leader charisma, effectiveness and integrity: Effects of exemplification, delivery, and ethical reputation. Management Communication Quarterly, 16: 502-527.Norlyk, Birgitte. 2006. Clashing norms: Job ads or Job Narratives. In Paul Gillaerts and Philip Shaw (ed.), The Map and the Landscape – Norms and Practices in Genre, 43-62. Bern: Peter Lang.Northouse, Peter G. 2004. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

The Danish management job ad:advertising for the competent manager or promoting masculine values?

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The Danish management job ad:advertising for the competent manager or promoting masculine values?

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